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Iran: 'Stop Stoning Forever' Campaign

WLUML supports, and urges you to support, this campaign with the objective of changing the Islamic Penal Code of Iran so that stoning will never again be issued as a sentence or practiced as a punishment.

The Stop Stoning Forever campaign has begun through the coordinated efforts of some women’s non-governmental organizations, a group of women activists and the Network of Volunteer Lawyers.

Stoning is a punishment for adultery decreed by the Islamic Penal Code of Iran. Most of the victims are women. In December 2002, Ayatollah Shahroudi, the Head of Judiciary ordered a ban on the practice of stoning. However, rumors about executions by stoning continued to be heard around the country. In May 2006, a man and woman were executed in Mashhad. In June 2006 in Evin prison, Tehran, a woman named Ashraf Kolheri was handed an official notice that gave her 15 days notice of her execution by stoning. Consequently, a large group of women activists wrote a petition to Ayatollah Shahroudi asking him to commute her sentence; the parliament representatives were copied on the letter.

Meanwhile, the Network of Volunteer Lawyers initiated a search for people sentenced to be stoned within the prisons of the country. After two months of research, 9 women and 2 men were identified - some of those cases were critical. Some members of the Network of Volunteer Lawyers decided to represent these 11 prisoners to save their lives.